The Mothers(9)

“I ain’t in charge of his schedule.”

“Well, have you seen him?”

“You okay?”

“Did you see him earlier?”

“Why don’t you just call him?”

“He’s not answering,” she said. “I’m worried.”

It wasn’t like Luke to disappear like this, to not answer his phone, to promise he’d be somewhere, then not show. Especially on a day like today when she needed him, when he knew she needed him. She was worried that something bad had happened to him, or even worse, that nothing had. What if he had abandoned her at that clinic because he’d simply chosen to? No, he would never do that—but she thought about him at the water park, clamping his hand over her phone, that brief moment when she had felt safe and loved right before Luke had pulled away.

Pepe sighed, setting the glass on the bar. He had four daughters, Luke had told her once, and she wondered if this was why Pepe always refused her fake ID, always shooed away men who hit on her, always asked her how she was getting home.

“Look, hon,” he said. “You know Sheppard. Probably just wanted to go out with his buddies. I’m sure he’ll call you tomorrow. Just go home, won’t you?”

—

IN THE END, she found Luke at a party.

Not just any party but a high school party, although Cody Richardson would’ve been offended to hear his parties referred to as such. He had graduated ten years ago, after all, but his parties would always be high school parties because Nadia, and everyone else at Oceanside High, had spent countless weekends partying at his house. He was a sandy-haired skater, the type of white boy she had nothing in common with. But even though she normally hated white boy parties—the repetitive techno music, the smothering Abercrombie and Fitch cologne, the terrible dancing—she had gone to Cody Richardson’s parties because everyone did. She had piled inside his beach bungalow every weekend, where you never worried about anyone’s parents coming back to town early or the cops shutting the party down, and now his floor plan read like a map of her teenage firsts: the balcony where she’d first smoked weed, hacking into the beach air; the corner of the kitchen where she’d broken up with her first boyfriend; the hallway in front of the bathroom where she had drunk-cried the weekend after they buried her mother.

She hadn’t been back to Cody’s since. The yellow house already felt like something she’d outgrown and once she’d graduated, she promised herself that she would never return. She had always been bothered by how many people did, how everyone seemed stuck in time, the years since high school collapsing as soon as they stepped through the door. Still, Cody’s house was the only place she could think to find Luke after she’d driven past his parents’ house and seen his truck missing from the driveway. Somehow, she knew he would be at Cody’s. She felt him as she walked, lovesick and angry, across the damp beach sand. She followed the footprint trail leading to the beach house, wondering if she might find the footprints that belonged to Luke, her feet stepping inside his the entire time.

Techno pulsed through the open door in green waves as she padded up the lopsided driftwood steps. Bass rumbled through wooden floors sticky with beer, and she paused in the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the dimness. She wouldn’t have noticed Luke at first if it weren’t for his walk. Past the crowd of white kids thrashing together, past kitchen counters covered in half-empty bottles of liquor and two triangles of cups from an abandoned game of beer pong, she caught Luke’s silhouette crossing the darkened room. That slight limp, subtle enough for most to ignore it but as familiar to her as his voice. He looked drunk, a near-empty pint of Jim Beam dangling from his hand. When she neared, he swayed a little, as if the sight of her was enough to knock him off balance.

“Nadia,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she said. “I called you a hundred fucking times.”

“You shouldn’t be here. You should be in bed or something—”

“Where were you?” she said. “I waited for hours.”

“Some shit came up, okay? I knew you were gonna find a way home.”

But he stared at the ground when he said it and she knew he was lying.

“You left me,” she said.

He finally looked up at her, and it startled her, how he looked the same as he always had. Shouldn’t someone look different once you’ve caught them in a lie, once you’ve seen them truthfully for the first time?

“Look, this shit was supposed to be fun,” he said, “not all this fucking drama. I got you the money. What else do you want from me?”

Then he brushed past her, pushing through the crowd and lurching unevenly toward the door. She should’ve known. She should’ve known when he’d brought her an envelope with six hundred dollars that the money was his part, the rest hers. He’d slipped her the money, and now she was a problem that he’d already dealt with. In a way, she had known this—or at least suspected it—but she’d wanted to believe in Luke, in love, in people who did not leave. She squeezed into the kitchen, past a group of giddy high schoolers playing flip cup, and reached for a bottle of Jose Cuervo on the counter. The dreadlocked nurse had told her no alcohol for forty-eight hours—thins the blood, increases the bleeding—but she poured a shot of tequila anyway. She felt a hand on her waist and when she turned, Devon Jackson lingered behind her, a joint pressed between his fingertips. She hadn’t spoken to him since they fooled around once her freshman year; he looked the same, almost delicate, tall and lean with long eyelashes except his skin was now covered in tattoos. Even his neck was darkened with ink, a fleur-de-lis stretching up his throat.